The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-03-24
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on Wise Men Who
Play the Fool For Purpose.

Men Who Allow the Technicalities of Re-
Iigion to Impede Their Salvation
Wise i'm Great Things, but Mere Babes
nRelation to Things Eternal.
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage, in recent SER
mon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, DIS
coursed on some of the weaknesses Of
mankind, taking for his text:
And he changed his behavior before them,
and feigned himself mad in their hands, and
scrabbied on the doors of the gate, and let his
spittle fall down upon his beard Sam, xxi,
ID.
He said: There is one scene in the life of
David that you may not have pondered
You have seen him with harp PLAYING
the devil out of Saul; with sling, smash
ing the skull of Goliath; with sword,
hacking to pieces the Philistines; with a
scepter, ruling vastrealm; with PSALM
gathering all nations into doxology; but
In my text you have David playing the
fool. He has been anointed King, yet he is
in exile and passing incognito among the
Gathites. They begin to suspect who he
is, and say:
81 wonder il this is not the warrior King
oofAus ~ IOOho LIEU lllM ID uOb ttllo sIlC
man about whom they used to make
poetry, and about whom they composed a
dance, so that the maidens of the city,
reeling now on one foot and now on the
other, used to sing: Saul has slain his
thousands, but David has slain his tens of
thousands Yes, it is very much like
David. 1t must be David. 1t is David.''
David, to escape their hands, pretends
to be demented. He said within himself:
IF act crafty, then these pc ople will
not injure me. No one would be SO much
Of coward as to assault madman.''
So, one day, while these Gathites are
watching David with increased suspicion,
they see him standing by the door running
his hands meaninglessly up and down the
understanding on the door as though
he would climb up, his mouth wide open,
drooling like an infant. suppose the
boys Of the streets threw missiles at him.
but the sober people of the town said:
This is not fair. Do you not see that
he has lost his reasona Do not touch this
mailman. Hands off !! hands OFF,
So David escaped; but what an exhibit
ton he made of himself before all the
agesl There was a majesty in King
Lear's madness after Regain and Goneril
his daughters, had persuaded him to
Danish their sister Cordelia. and all the
friends of the drama have been thrilled
with that spectacle. The craziness OF
Meg Merrilles was weird and imposing,
and the most telling passage in Walter
Scott's "Guy Mannering" There was a
fascination about the insanity. of Alex
ander Cruden, who made the best con-
cordance of the Bible that the world ever
saw-made it between the mad-houses.
Some time ago, while was visiting the
insane asylum on Blackwelrs Island, a
demended woman came up to me and said,
in most tragic style:
God moves in mysterious way,
His wonders to perform:
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
But there was nothing grand, nothing
weird, nothing majestic, nothing sublime,
about the stimulation on the part of David.
Instead OF trusting in the Lord, as he had
ON other occasions, he gathers before him
vast audience of all generations that
were to come, and standing on that con-
spicuous stage Of history, in the presence
of all the ages, he impersonates the slav-
ering idiot.
And he changed his behavior before them,
and feigned himself mad in their hands. and
scrabbled at the door Of the gate, and let his
spittle fall upon his beard.
Taking the behavior of David as sug-
gestion, wish to tell you how many Of
the wise, and the brave, and the regal,
sometimes play the fool And in the first
place remark that those men as badly
play the fool as this man of the text, who,
In any crisis of life, take their cases out
Of the hand of God. David, in this case,
acted as though there were no God to lift
him out Of this predicament. What
contrast between his behavior.
when this brave little man stood up in
front of the giant ten feet in height, and
looking into his face said:
Thou CONTEST to me with sword, and with a
spear, and with a shield; but come to thee in
the name Of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the
armies OF Israel, whom thou hast defied This
day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand,
and I will smite thee, and take thine head
from thee, and will give the carcasses Of the
hosts OF the Philistines this day unto the fowls
Of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth.
that all the earth may know that there is God
in Israel
Between that time and this time, when
he debased himself, and bedraggled his
manhood, and affected insanity in order
that he might escape from the grip of the
Gathites. In the one case he played the
hero. In the other case he played the fool.
So does every man who, in the great crisis
of life. takes his case out of the hand of
God. The life Of the most insignificant
man in this house is too vast for any hui
man management. One time, returning
from the West, very easily got on the
locomotive while passing over the plains,
and talked with the engineer; but coming
on toward the Allegheny Mountains, /
thought would like to sit on the locomo-
tive as it came down from the mountains
amidst that most wonderful scenery on
this continent. I asked the engineer If /
might ride, but he courteously denied me,
for there the grade is SO steep, and so wind
ing, and so perilous, that he must not have
any one on the locomotive who may di-
vert his attention whe. eye and hand and
foot and brain must be concentered, ready
for the most sudden emergency. Well,
my friends, life is SO steep, and so peril
GUS, and so exposed to sudden surprises,
that none but the Lord Almighty can guide
and engineer it, and our disasters come
from the fact that we want to get up and
help the Lord to manage the train.
Keep of the engine! Be willing to let
God pull you where he wants to pull you.
You have no right for an instant to sur
render your sanity and manhood as David